


Sea-Salt Shadows

by stardropdream



Category: xxxHoLic
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-24
Updated: 2013-02-24
Packaged: 2017-12-03 10:00:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/697058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She finds her with blood in her hair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sea-Salt Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ March 24, 2011.

  
  
  
She finds her on the beach, far enough away from the water that she does not find danger in touching it. She looks up at this strange woman, who has appeared so suddenly, watches the way the little spiders scurry across the sand, back away from the water as quickly as possible.   
  
She makes a soft sound in the back of her throat, her lips quirking into an interested smile as she regards the girl on the beach.   
  
“There’s blood in your hair, still,” she says, primly, undisturbed or perhaps fascinated, by this fact.   
  
She reaches up to touch her hair, tugs her fingers through it and sees her fingers stained red when she pulls it back.   
  
“Who are you?” she asks when she looks up again.   
  
“Who am I? Or what am I?” she asks, approaching her. Her feet leave no imprints in the sand. “I have many names of what I am, but I have no Name.”   
  
“… Neither do I,” she decides, after a moment.  
  
“Is that so?” she says, and her voice sounds like liquid fire, smooth and powerful. She is close enough now that when she reaches out her hand, her fingers touch the underside of her chin, forcing her head up to look at this woman towering over her.   
  
“I can remember my name,” she says. “But already that seems disconnected to me. My life before I…”   
  
It has only been a short time since she’d found the mermaid, and already she feels dislocated, dislodged, disengaged.   
  
The fingers underneath her chin shift and curl around her jaw, forcing her face up. Not cruelly, but commandingly. She obeys.   
  
“You have taken what I sought here,” the woman says, eyes hooded.   
  
She does not apologize. She is not sorry.   
  
Her thumb strokes along her jawline and she feels it in an intensity she’s never experienced before. Suddenly all senses are heightened, but especially this moment with a smooth thumb stroking against her skin. It’s almost like a lover’s caress and she looks up at this strange woman with eyes slightly widened. The woman smiles, and the hand shifts into her hair, twining and tugging, soft and almost tender, and studying her face.   
  
And then as suddenly as the touches are there, they are gone, and the woman is stepping back.   
  
“I sought the mermaid, not the human who ate the mermaid,” she says with a small yawn, as if this entire exchange bored her. It probably did.   
  
She watches her. She does not say anything, does not say how she doesn’t feel human anymore. But she is not sure what, exactly, she does feel like.   
  
The woman turns her back and begins to walk away.   
  
She watches her go, wishing she had a name to fix to this woman. And knows that it wouldn’t matter. She will not forget her: the way she moves, the way her eyes held an unearthly light, the way she sinks into the darkness and disappears with only the scuttle of spiders in her wake.   
  
Her breathing is abnormal, and as she stands, her fingers lift to touch along her jaw, still on fire from the woman’s touch.


End file.
